


Farewell to the King of Kephallonia

by SemperIntrepida



Series: Elegiad [3]
Category: Assassin's Creed - All Media Types
Genre: Canon Compliant, Gen, fixing a canon cutscene because i am greedy and want more
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-21
Updated: 2019-11-21
Packaged: 2021-02-18 09:42:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,291
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21509017
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SemperIntrepida/pseuds/SemperIntrepida
Summary: In which Kassandra gives a proper farewell to Phoibe, the King of Kephallonia.
Relationships: Kassandra & Phoibe (Assassin's Creed)
Series: Elegiad [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1531004
Comments: 12
Kudos: 45





	Farewell to the King of Kephallonia

**Author's Note:**

> This one-shot is part of a linked series of stories, and while you don't have to read them all, they do combine into a unified narrative.

Kassandra heard the patter of footsteps skipping up the path long before the person they belonged to arrived at her door, but she recognized them instantly, and her stomach clenched as she realized they meant she’d have to have a conversation she wasn’t at all ready for. She gathered the corners of her blanket around the pitifully small bundle of belongings that made up everything she owned in this world, and tied them together into a knot. There was no hiding what she was doing.

Moments later, a small child burst into the room at top speed in both motion and words. “Kassandra! Youkilledthe _Cyclops!_ The whole island’s talking about you–”

Kassandra let go of the knotted blanket and turned around to greet her visitor. “Hello, Phoibe.”

Phoibe’s eyes darted between the bundle on the bed, to Kassandra’s face, and back again, a look of uncertainty creasing her features, but she was too clever to remain confused for long. “You’re leaving?”

Kassandra nodded, then knelt so their eyes were at the same level.

“Why? How?”

“Someone offered me a contract in Megaris.” She didn’t say what the contract was for. “And I have a ship that’ll take me there.”

“Were you going to leave without saying goodbye?” Phoibe asked, her voice seeming to shrink smaller and smaller.

“No!” Kassandra said. She reached out and put her hand on the girl’s shoulder. “I would never.”

Phoibe’s eyes searched Kassandra’s face. “Take me with you?” she asked. “I can help you. I can watch and listen for things, or deliver messages for you. I won’t get in your way.”

Kassandra would not take a child into a war zone. And Phoibe would be safer on the island now that the Cyclops and his thugs were out of the picture. But knowing it was the right thing to do didn’t make the idea of breaking a child’s heart any easier. “Kephallonia’s the only place you’ve ever known. You’d leave your home?”

“I would if it meant staying with you.”

It wouldn’t be just one heart breaking. Not at all, though Kassandra was surprised by how unready she was to say goodbye. Phoibe had been a constant in Kassandra’s life since the day a pair of sailors tossed a ragged little four year old on Markos’s doorstep along with a suggestive “We hear Markos is good with little girls” that earned each of them a broken nose courtesy of Kassandra’s fists.

Kassandra looked at Phoibe and shook her head. “You can’t go where I’m going.” She felt a prickle in her eyes and swallowed hard.

“Who’s going to keep you company?”

She smiled and tried to mean it. “I’ll be fine.”

Phoibe thought for a moment, then wriggled out of Kassandra’s grasp. “Wait here,” she said as she dashed out the door. Kassandra heard Phoibe's sandals scraping against the stucco wall as they climbed to the roof, then the sound of footsteps running overhead before they turned around and came back. When Phoibe reappeared in the doorway moments later, she was holding a small wooden object in her hands.

She held it out to Kassandra. “If I can’t go with you, take Chara.”

Chara, a carving of an eagle in flight given to Phoibe by her mother. It was the only reminder Phoibe had left of her parents.

“Phoibe, I can’t take this.”

“Yes you can.” She grabbed Kassandra’s hand and turned it palm up before pressing Chara into it. “You need her to remember me. You have to remember me, or you won’t ever come back.” She was crying now.

“Oh, Phoibe.” Kassandra set Chara gently on the bed, and then she opened her arms and let Phoibe come inside them, wrapping her in a hug and letting her cry out her loss and loneliness.

Kassandra knew saying goodbye would be hard, but not like this, not with a child sobbing in her arms and the needle-sharp teeth of guilt, oh gods, the guilt tearing at her stomach. Phoibe had somehow slipped inside her guard and she hadn’t even noticed, not through the days they spent staying one step ahead of the Cyclops and his thugs, or the sleepless nights she’d stood watch over Phoibe’s slumber, keeping the nightmares at bay.

She hadn’t even noticed, just like she hadn’t noticed the tears that now rolled down her own cheeks. She closed her eyes and held on to Phoibe for a long time, humming fragments of a lullaby she remembered from her own childhood. After a while, Phoibe’s breathing began to even and her crying stopped. “I promise you,” Kassandra said, “I’ll come back. You haven’t seen the last of me.”

Phoibe squirmed around and looked up at her, and a small hand wiped at the tears on Kassandra’s cheeks. “I’m going to miss you so much.”

“I’m going to miss you too. That’s why I have to come back. And someone has to make sure you stay out of trouble.”

“Now that the Cyclops is dead, that will be easy,” Phoibe said, her face brightening at the thought of it. “I wish I could have been there when you did it.”

Kassandra shot her a look.

“But I’m too little, I know. How did he die?”

“Angry. And not easily. It took a lot of stabs to put down that brute.”

Phoibe clucked her tongue in mock pity. “And your broken spear is so small…”

“Hey now, it’s not just any broken spear.”

“Oh I know, it’s the Spear of Leonidas, King of Sparta, Hero of Greece, grandfather of–”

“So you’ve been listening to me after all.” How easily they slipped into their familiar banter. “You know, I was about your age when my mother gave it to me.”

“I wish my mater gave me a spear, but I got a wooden eagle instead.”

“Well, you _are_ Athenian.”

“And you’re a Spartan. Aren’t we supposed to fight each other?”

“Do you want to?”

Phoibe jumped up into a grappling stance, one of several Kassandra had taught her, and Kassandra grinned and went into a defensive guard from her knees. They sparred in slow motion, Kassandra occasionally murmuring suggestions, until she could sense Phoibe beginning to tire. Then she opened her defenses, letting Phoibe work her way into pinning her.

“I yield!” Kassandra said, as Phoibe tried her hardest to crush her with her nonexistent weight.

Phoibe sat up and grinned with pride. “If _you_ beat the Cyclops and _I_ beat you, that makes me the King of Kephallonia!”

“Well then, what are your orders, my King?” Kassandra asked, though she already had a good guess of what they would be.

Phoibe thought about it. “I was going to order you not to leave, but I know I shouldn’t.” She idly tapped a pattern into Kassandra’s armor as she considered her options. “Let me walk with you to Sami. I want to see your ship.”

“As you wish, my King.”

A look of panic suddenly flashed across Phoibe’s face. “I haven’t made you late for it, have it?”

“No, it’s my ship now. I get to decide when we leave.”

Phoibe climbed to her feet and threw all her weight into helping Kassandra up. “Tell me how you got a ship. And how you fought the Cyclops. And–”

“Hold on, let me grab my things first,” Kassandra said as she reached for her bundle on the bed.

Half a candlemark later, the two of them were on the path to Sami, Phoibe skipping circles around her as she hefted her belongings on one shoulder and cradled Chara in her other hand. She was just wrapping up her tale of how she’d rescued Barnabas from the Cyclops, and how that had earned her the services of his ship, the Adrestia, when they reached the edge of Markos’s new vineyard.

As they approached the first of the vineyard’s terraced rows, one of the boys working the vines spotted them and ran off towards the villa up above. Kassandra sighed, knowing it meant they’d get a visit from Markos just as soon as he could saunter down the villa’s steps.

They’d hardly reached the crossroads at the edge of the vineyard before she felt his presence. She always did, like the unsettled changes in the air one felt before a storm, or in this case the appearance of trouble, because wherever Markos went, trouble wasn’t far behind.

Kassandra turned at his approach and set her belongings down by her feet with Chara carefully perched on top.

“Leaving Kephallonia without saying goodbye to your dear Markos? Tell me it isn’t true!”

She crossed her arms. “Well, you’re here now, so it won’t be true. Goodbye, Markos.”

“What am I going to do now? I’ll never be able to replace you.”

“Learn to make wine? Enjoy life without debt now that I’ve killed the Cyclops for the both of us?”

“Come now, Kassandra. You never know when the vines will wither.”

“I’m sure you’ll manage.”

“I suppose I could find another assistant. But it won’t be easy!” His eyes flicked over to Phoibe and back, and the hairs at the nape of Kassandra’s neck stood up.

“Be very careful about putting your assistants in danger, Markos.” She spoke slowly and clearly, letting the implications hang over them both.

He blinked in surprise. “Of course, of course! Only the safest of errands! Now come here and give me a hug.”

Her first reaction was to say no, to offer her forearm for him to clasp instead, but then she thought of the day she’d washed up on the shore like another piece of debris, injured and starving, and how he’d taken her in, fed her, and given her a place to stay while she rebuilt some kind of life out of the wreckage of her old one.

Markos had never done anything for free, but he had done _something_ , which was more than most. And the silly fool had been the catalyst of the events that would get her off the island after all.

She sighed, opened her arms to give him a hug, and considered her debt to him paid in full.

“Goodbye, Markos,” she said as she picked up her bundle and returned it to her shoulder. Sami was just over the hill. The Adrestia awaited.

She walked with Phoibe to the crest of the hill. Phoibe had stopped skipping, and had grown more and more quiet the closer they came to Sami.

“Be careful around Markos,” Kassandra said. “His schemes are getting more risky.”

“Now that the Cyclops is gone–”

“Now that the Cyclops is gone, others will try to take his place. Watch and wait it out, and don’t choose any sides if you can help it.”

“Like a misthios.”

Kassandra nodded.

“I think I understand.”

And Phoibe probably did. She’d always been a quick learner, and, like Kassandra, she’d already seen the best and worst of humanity at a terribly young age. Kassandra felt marginally better about leaving Phoibe here on this wretched island. Who knew, maybe Phoibe would end up ruling it as the actual King of Kephallonia someday.

“Where will you go, after Megaris?” Phoibe asked.

“I don’t know. Athens, maybe. There’s sure to be work for me there.”

“Athens.” Phoibe’s voice had faded to a whisper, and Kassandra wondered if Phoibe felt the same twinge she did whenever someone mentioned Sparta, a kind of longing, curious and reverent. The she felt a tug at her belt, and saw Phoibe pointing ahead. “I see a ship! Is that yours?”

“That’s the one.” Kassandra couldn’t help but grin upon seeing the Adrestia. _Her_ ship. Her ticket out. Of course she’d have to figure out a way to pay the crew and for all the upkeep, but there was a war going on and plenty of drachmae to be made if she was smart about it. She could go wherever she wanted, _do_ whatever she wanted, and if she was careful with her coin she might even be able to come back here and take Phoibe somewhere safe.

They arrived at the dock all too quickly, where Barnabas was waiting for her. “We’re ready when you are, Captain,” he said, gesturing for a passing deckhand to take Kassandra’s belongings aboard. Then his eyes glanced at Phoibe before settling upon her, unasked questions lurking behind them.

Kassandra nodded at Phoibe. “Barnabas, this is Phoibe, the King of Kephallonia.”

Bless him, he didn’t miss a beat. He swept into a deep bow before Phoibe. “I’m honored to meet you, your Highness.”

Phoibe laughed before she remembered her role, and Kassandra had a hard time keeping a straight face as the voice of a little girl pitched as low as it could go and said gravely, “The honor is mine, Barnabas. But now I command you to keep Kassandra safe as you travel the seas.”

“You have my word on it, your Highness.”

Kassandra kneeled and tried to smile through her tears. “Goodbye, Phoibe.”

Phoibe threw her arms around her. “We’ll see each other again.”

“Yes.” Kassandra placed a kiss on her forehead, and Phoibe gave her one final squeeze before pulling away.

“OK, you can leave now,” she said, and then she was gone, running away at top speed through the docks to the market beyond.

Kassandra felt Barnabas studying her as she lifted herself back to her feet. She turned and met his gaze for several moments, ignoring the tears running down her cheeks, until he extended his hand and said to her, “Let us keep our promises.”

She took a steadying breath before saying, “We will.” Then she reached for his hand and stepped up on the gangplank, a first step towards the wide world beyond.

**Author's Note:**

> For chantgirl at tumblr dot com, who doesn't even go here, but asked for more backstory anyway. ;) And in the process of thinking about backstory, I realized that though I don't intend to rewrite a lot of cutscenes over the course of this series, this is one cutscene I wish had more time and space to breathe in the game, because I just couldn't imagine a world where Kassandra could even consider leaving Phoibe behind without saying goodbye. This story is my small attempt at fixing that.


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